Besides me, the teacher, and two adult women, there are these two girls I know, Mary-Kate and Karen, best friends joined at the hip, and now Seth Catterson, the missionary boy back from Ghana. This morning, one of the women, a thin, blond seminary wife, starts us off by saying that in her old church whenever anyone was baptized, they spoke in tongues. “Baptized not just with water,” she says, “but with the Holy Ghost.” The teacher, Connie Bowls, nods so hard that her soft, powdery skin quivers. It’s like she’s agreeing, but she’s not. No one will expect the blond woman to speak in tongues at First Community Church, Connie Bowls explains. In fact, First Community considers tongues to be a private prayer language. To be used in private. The seminary wife writes this down on her notepad. “But if there’s a translator, then it doesn’t have to be private,” says the other adult woman. She’s also blond, but heavier set. With her Bible, she holds an old issue of The Good Word, the one with my father’s revelation on fasting.
